University of Surrey to unveil £40m vet school in autumn

The new vet school at the University of Surrey is due to be open in October

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The University of Surrey will unveil its £40 million veterinary school in October - the first academic buildings built on the Manor Park campus.

The development, and the process by which it was approved, has been criticised by those living nearby, but the university in Guildford has sought to assure them it will benefit Surrey as a whole and will meet the highest levels of biosecurity.

It is only the eighth such centre in England and while it will give a cohort of veterinary students hands-on experience with animal health and links to veterinary practices in the area, it will also have benefits for human health.

The school will comprise three buildings including a main academic centre with offices, teaching spaces, lecture theatres and research laboratories, a veterinary pathology building and a clinical skills centres with an animal examination area and animal simulators.

Professor Lisa Roberts, executive dean of the faculty of health and medical sciences, said there was a strong strategy and vision for the next five to 10 years at the university on working in the area of health.

“We have called this a ‘one health vision’, ” Prof Roberts said. “Within this faculty, we are getting academics working together in research and educational areas, as well to work together across the faculty and across the university to assist how we can improve ultimately the health of humans and animals.

“There will be a lot of cross-disciplinary work, possibly bringing together some of the engineers, scientists and nursing staff to really have great ideas for further areas of research that have a major impact on society.

“Having the vet school is great because it will benefit everyone, not only Surrey but nationally and internationally, through the sum of the research coming out.”

She said it was another step in Surrey being increasingly seen as a major university.

The vision of the vet school has evolved through the university’s work in its school of bioscience and medicine, and predominantly working with the Pirbright Institute and the Animal Plant Health Agency in New Haw.

£40m will be invested in the brand new veterinary centre

“We started working with them in joint research projects, mainly around infectious diseases, and a lot of work with diseases that spread from animals to humans, and on the back of that research, we decided there was room for a new course for students, called veterinary biosciences,” Prof Roberts said.

“We then asked the question: ‘Should we have a vet school to take this even further?’. ”

Prof Chris Proudman, head of the school of veterinary medicine, said one key area of research being undertaken was gut disease in poultry and in particular, salmonella.

“The researchers are understanding why these infections establish themselves in the gut of the chicken and how they spread between chickens,” Prof Proudman said.

“This is really key in controlling the diseases. Controlling it in animals means it can stop being transferred to people who eat the meat.”

The department also works closely with Eashing vet, Prof Noel Fitzpatrick, who appears in Channel 4’s Supervet programme.

Through that partnership, Prof Proudman said there has been a lot of work on a particular problem affecting some breeds of dog, such as cavalier King Charles spaniels, called syringomyelia, which in turn helps medics understand the way it occurs in people.

The condition occurs when a cavity forms within the spinal cord and fills with fluid, which can expand over time and damage the spinal cord.

Prof Proudman said neighbours had raised concerns about building the vet school, querying what would be taking place at the site but that meetings had been held to discuss these issues.

“I have met with a couple of people, some of whom are very knowledgeable, and some who have a veterinary background, to explain exactly what we are doing and address some of the concerns and to reassure them we are not going to be bringing nasty infectious diseases into Guildford and releasing them,” he said.

“We have been reassuring them that our facilities are built to the highest biosecurity levels and all the things they are concerned about, around management of animal waste.

“These things have a high regulation and in order to meet regulations, the university has spent an incredible amount of money to get it right.”